How are we paying to house asylum seekers

[Asylumhotels]

I saw on the news that the UK is spending several million pounds every day to house asylum seekers in hotels. How are we affording this? Surely we can't carry this on, are there any alternatives?

Sorry if this is incorrect, I only know what I've seen on the news so any further info is welcome

well I did because that's my experience

Can't understand how basic documents are still paper. Why can't they be digital? They wouldn't be so easily lost or destroyed then.

@ShakespearesBlister yeah, not 5 years though.

Like many aspects of state provision, the system is totally broken. Understaffed, tied up in red tape, incompetent.

The approach is that asylum seekers are lying and it's the job of the Home Office to evidence that. So no stone is left unturned, meaning (just as 1 example) multiple interviews over time, where any inconsistencies will result in rejection. The problem with that is it's hugely resource heavy and time consuming. For me a balance-of-probability approach would be more sensible but that won't wash politically.

If we had an effective, efficient system this wouldn’t happen.

This government doesn't want one though. It’s doing all it can to whip up the hate for the “others”.

Seems to be working.

How does the person who needs to decide do it when there’s no papers?

There’s always a good old AS bashing thread to fall back on.

How does the person who needs to decide do it when there’s no papers

Quiet a lot of work goes into interviewing, finding out about the journey, their experiences before arriving, who they arrived with, descriptions of life at home, details of persecution - then aid agencies will try and trace friends and family, even google Earth to locate home villages etc - it's more complex than that obviously but it's very heavily researched.

I don't understand what you mean? Do you suggest we have a worldwide database of (e.g.) passports instead of actual documents?

Because (I'd still like to believe that) we are, fundamentally, decent human beings...

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the system all the accommodation and food needs to be paid for. The OP asked how it's being funded.

If we didn't allow them to come they'd soon stop. And before people start bleating - how long is this sustainable?

And no, I don't care about them - like most people me and mine come first.

We’re paying for massive Home Office inefficiency and lack of foresight, unfortunately, which has built up a huge backlog of cases that are taking a long time to get processed.

One alternative is to increase the number of properly trained caseworkers so cases could be processed faster and the backlog could be worked through. The backlog that’s built up is responsible for the current over-use of hotels and obviously the money that costs.

A longer term solution is an increase in the availability of social housing. Due to government cuts the amount of social housing built in the last 5,6 years has massively reduced (to zero in some councils), as anyone on here who’s tried to find social housing will agree. This doesn’t mean that asylum seekers should prioritised for social housing though. But more social housing should be available for everybody who needs it.

Being an asylum seeker is (or should be!) a temporary state, and as a pp mentioned above, asylum seekers can’t work. When their claim is granted, they become refugees and can work, can rent/buy houses. So if asylum seekers are put in social housing, it doesn’t have to be a permanent state - they can move on and the property becomes available again.

Safe routes is another solution, so claims can be processed before people arrive in the UK, removing the need to use people traffickers and smugglers.

Housing asylum seekers across the country instead of condensing them in one area is another, although the Home Office repeatedly fuck up by housing large groups of people in areas that are already overstretched and underfunded, or have next to no available healthcare/public transport etc.

Sorry, that’s already long so I’ll stop there.

The question you should be asking is why is the UK unable to process asylum claims quickly and efficiently, which would include people being able to claim while outside the UK, so that people don't have to spend months or even years unable to work and provide for themselves.

I also suggest spending less time reading the Daily Mail...

@Asylumhotels why do you pay £100 a night to stay in a local hotel?

Agreed, but imagine that!

In my opinion, the government are a bunch of inept fuckwits with their heads firmly up their own arses.

They are happy to pay taxpayers money into the pockets of their donors by using our money to pay the extortionate hotel bills, hence the deliberate slowing down of processing claims. As far as they are concerned asylum seekers are a cash cow.

They could sort this fairly easily if they wanted to- more staff to process the claims and a way to apply for asylum in other countries would be a start.

They'd rather blame the victims though.

Maybe we should levy a tax on the arms trade, that make huge profits selling weapons to the regimes these people are fleeing from, in order to pay for the cost of Asylum Seekers and Refugees.

Let’s stop doing Business with countries that abuse human rights

Lets get a process in place to look at claims quicker

Let’s put in place a legal route that allows people to apply for refugee status whilst they are abroad (rather then have them come over in small boats)

Or instead we can use these human beings like political footballs, and blame that for the various ills of this country that were not their making.

Well said

Of course we do. Why would we be the only country to be exempt. We take a LOT less than our fair share.

Exactly.

What stopped you using your regular name @Asylumhotels ?

Serco contracts.. serco contracts then finds houses to put them in. Why do you think rents are accelerating?

FOI request of local council shows serco have several properties under HMO license.

Local hotel has been used for a year. 90+ migrants continually being refilled as they move on.

They go out to tender to house them. None of the below will come cheap and I wonder how many are actually 16-17 years old?

Additional Reception Accommodation for newly arrived UASC
Categories

The Council’s Services for Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (SUASC) has a statutory responsibility for Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) under the Children Act 1989 and seeks to develop additional reception accommodation for newly arrived UASC, to provide humanitarian accommodation, assess their needs, including age, and prepare those assessed as under 18 for living in the community. Having identified facilities makes the risk assessment more robust and supports the Governments Prevent agenda.
Service Requirements
The services required to fulfil the offer of a Reception Centre is made up of:
• Accommodation for UASC males; must be single bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms with some shared facilities i.e., kitchen and dining facilities and shared lounges.
• Accommodation for staff such as offices, meeting rooms and communal areas to deliver the independence skills required, various assessments and administrative functions.
• Housing support from the landlord including furniture, safety equipment such as CCTV and concierge services.
• Support staff/Social Worker support.
Ideally, the Reception Centre must be able to flex to an increasing need, potentially by having bedrooms and communal space of a size to fit more than one single male in one room.
Physical Accommodation Requirements
• A single building or grouped buildings on the same site of between 80-120 units. We will NOT be interested in small properties dispersed across the county.
• The building/grouped buildings must have the correct planning permission in place to be able to deliver this service to this specific cohort.
• A location in the East or South of the County.
• Set in a discrete location to have minimal impact on the local community.
• Catering facility able to accommodate the number of occupants.
• Only male aged 16-17 occupancy.
• Minimum capacity of 80 placements, ideally up to 120.
• Communal areas are available for socialising, lessons, and briefings.
• Low maintenance costs.
• Easy to repair given propensity for damage.
• Space for office accommodation for the SUASC Operational Team (22 staff).
The Council would like to hear from organisations, which may be interested in tendering for this opportunity, to discuss ideas on how this could be most effectively and efficiently delivered and to provide greater insight into the market.

If OP bothered to read the link I posted she would see that we spend a fraction of our income housing asylum seekers. Costs, at least for the first year, come from the overseas aid budget (which the Cons manifesto promised to be 0.7% of income) - you know, feeding starving children in Ethiopia which even the staunchest of right wing DM readers can't object to.

This budget has been reduced to 0.5%, and of that, about 7.5% is spent on AS in the Uk.

In other words, for every £100 the UK Gov gets, 4p goes on housing AS.

@BotterMon most are 16-18 because they are looked after children under local authority care - any child under 18 with no family is taken into care!

Most local authorities wont pay if they have any reason - going forward - to believe they are over 18 because of the cost

@BotterMon sorry meant to add - you are not showing the criteria for hotel but for unregulated children's homes for unaccompanied children

Either grant them asylum or don't.